Morning journal and courier., 1887-06-30
SOMEBODY PAYS FOR 1T.
New York Saloons support Thousands
of Worthy FO1ks-Who Supports the
SaIoQnR9


New York Saloons support Thousands
of Worthy Folks-Who Supports the
SaIoons3
[From the st. Louis Globe Democrat
The number of persons who make living
out of New York barrooms has grown to a
legion. American barrooms are the most ar
tistie and inviting in the world, and the en-
terprise of their proprietors has made busi-
ness and handsome incomes for purveyors
in many lines. At stated intervals a man
from New Jersey visits all the principal
saloons of the city, bearing bundle of
roots. He is the seller of sweet-fiag. He
hires fifty acres of low land in Jersey,
which is dense with a growth of sweet-fae.
He harvests crop once a month during
the summer season and sells his product
at an average price of nearly one cent
root. Experienced drinkers value nothing
more highly than sweet-fag as breath
d1slnfeetant. The sweet-afg vender is fol-
lowed by thrifty woman, who sells mint
at i've cents a bunch. All frst-class sa-
looms use at least one bunch of mint a
aay. Then comes the handler of spices; he
has an elaborate case of commodities, in
cludlng cinnamon, allspice, cloves, coffee,
snake root and cassia buds. The latter are
the most popular, but at the same time
the most expensive of breath perfumes.
and patron who buys a ten-cent drink
and takes q liberal pinch of cassia buds
shaves off the profits with the latter luxu-
ry to the extent that few saloon owners
will furnish it. The most popular concom-
liant of drinks is the comparatively new
feature of parehed sweet corn, which sells
at twenty-five cents per quart. The corn
is literally sprinkled with salt, and the
man who takes drink and then chews
ha,,I ri 81 ,oJ4 4I,okl
ly seized with desire to take another
drink. Two dealers in parched corn make
an income of more than fifty dollars day
in New York, and there is multitude of
minor merchants in the same commodity
who make lesser sums.
A large number Of women make a COM
Portable living selling bouquets of flowers
for the adornment of the bars of saloons.
A great army of lemon and orange ven
ders visit certain smaller saloons each day
and make comfortable incomes from their
traffic. The more extensive places, which
use box of lemons a day, and oranges,
pineapples and strawberries in large quanti-
ties, buy them at wholesale.
One man has for years made a handsome
living by selling soft shell crabs in the sa-
VI. vi. md billiard rooms of New York.
in fried oysters. -10 ~'0''-'
The principal free-lunch saloon u1 .ba
city, in which a high standard chief is en-
ployed, consumes one hundred bushels of
beans month, and Russian caviare sau-
sages and roast beef that cost the proprie-
tor of the place two hundred dollars per
week.
Not long ago every proprietor of first
class saloon decorated the walls and chande-
liers of his place with curiously cut pen
dant paper. Fashion, which governs sa-
looms as rigidly it controls the ladies, over
took this innovation and drove it out of
la@a Gall i,,4
graced with paper decoration, but no fash
ionable resort in New York is addicted to
the practice. 1t has, to the sorrow of the
paper hangers, succumbed to the style set
by dry goods store window decorator of
this city. A saloon keeper who had wear
led of the gaudy festoons of paper asked
the tasteful window decorator to devise
something new for the protection of the
costly chandeliers and glass of the place
from the flies. The decorator took some
cheap tarlatan of gay colors and trimmed
the saloon with it. Instantly the place
became famous, and the window trimmer
deluged with orders to the extent that he
left the store and made twenty dollars per
day trimming saloons. Professional win
dow trimmers all over the city and from
Europe, where window decorating is trade
by itself, found out the secret, and the
next year dozen men were at the busi-
ness. Now more than one hundred profess
SlOAaA uoCOfatOES L1ahS u living III new
York trimming saloons. They begin solic-
iting orders long before flies around,
and their season of work lasts from April
to August. They pay from twelve and one-
half to twenty-five cents yard for the tar
latan they use, and get from ten to one hun
dred dollars for decorating a saloon They
keep stocks of blue and yellow for German
saloons, liberal supplies of green for Irish
resorts and subdued, mild tints fer high
toned American places. When the summer
trimming season is over they begin to solicit
work for the winter holiday time, when they
decorate saloons and private residences with
holly and eveTgreens. Their business is in
creased by the growing fashion of having the
stateroom OF passenger going out on an
ocean steamer trimmed with floral festoons
at the instance of friends.
The picture frame makers too come in for
share of the profits of the saloon business.
When new saloon or restaurant is opened
the proprietor preserves as a souvenir of
good luck the first bill paid over the bar 1t
is framed in the most expensive manner that
the owner can devise and hung up in con-
spicuous place. The frame of an initial five
dollar bill hanging in one Broadway saloon
is studded with rubies and other precious
stones.
A saloonist sn upper Broadway, who has
literary tastes, has furnished a novel attrac-
tion to the patrons of his wine rooms on the
upper floors in the form of complete libra
ries of leading works of fiction or travel.
The books are bound in rich Turkey -moroc-
co, and each room contains marble medal
lion portrait of the late Peter Cooper.
i sn&E6U